Who Really Owns PPS…

Being my usual self on a cold windy night, I decided to do something that fits my inquisitive nature perfectly. Connective blog hopping. The kind where you pick a blog with links and see where it goes from there. It just so happens that I dug up on a very old skeleton in the closest.

His name goes by Tim Yang.

To those of you who already know, there is no point in explaining it any further. To those of you who don’t know, I’ll keep the story short because some skeletons are not really meant to be displayed out there. As far as I know, Tim Yang claims to be one of the longest Malaysian bloggers around (since 1996) and that the very idea behind Project Petaling Street was his idea which was snatched away by Aizuddin Danian. That and something between all Malaysians are tech illiterate cheapskates and elitist ideals (added on note: Plus banning all Malaysian IP addresses from his site)…well…you can understand why this ugly mess should be moved along and kept out of sight.

To me that all doesn’t matter.

Because ancient history aside, it comes up to one question that I have seen been tossed back and forth in that very tiresome argument.

I am a blogger and I am lucky to use something like Project Petaling Street. It gets my blog out there if not to the world then to a bunch of people I would like to call my community. Isn’t that good enough? It doesn’t matter who came up with the idea. As long as the idea came up in the first place. It doesn’t matter who took the idea.

It matters that they used it for something that benefits people.

Yes. Proprietary rights still apply in the world. It applies only if you plan to make money out of it but in the end, a system built on selectivity rather than diversity would only corrode into stagnation. This is a world built on the diversity and flow of ideas. It doesn’t matter if you came up with an idea first, because with 6 billion people on the planet…someone probably has a better idea than you. It matters that you make it, change it, you evolve it into something better than what you previously thought off.

That’s what PPS has become.

An idea made into reality. Built up. Refined and evolving with the help of many ideas as times go along. It made a community.

And the community makes it up.

So yeah, I believe that we own PPS. PPS belongs to everyone who uses it to ping their blogs. It belongs to everyone who uses it to read other people’s blogs. Just as when an artists creates something, whatever the artist creates belongs to society. PPS was created with the society in mind for the society to use and with that, it belongs to the society it was created for.

Related

35 thoughts on “Who Really Owns PPS…”

Although I don’t ping PPS, I do go to the site everyday for my dose of daily juices. I must say, whichever link that I click on, it always leads me to something even more juicer or even help me widen my circle of blogsphere.

Kudos to PPS 🙂 May you evolve into a more dynamic portal and bring together more bloggers all around like you’ve always have.

Spppps: I never said it was perfect. I said it’s something that can be constantly evolved. You can choose to click on those links if you want…I don’t. I look up what interests me to begin with. It’s a place where bloggers who ping can a place for themselves. That’s why say it belongs to us.

I don’t quite mind if the ppl running/paying for PPS gets some extra benefits. But I was very itnerested in what you said about Tim Yang. I always believe that credit be given to those who deserve it, and I’m not a fan of ppl stealign each others ideas.

David: Well…what I read is purely a secondary source based on he says she says kinda view which is why I don’t want to go into it. One side says one thing and another side says another. Different perceptions and different ways of looking at things.

That’s why I said that I don’t really care about that ancient history. It’s too far distorted in my opinion for anyone outside to know what really happened.

Tim Yang has banned all access to his site (timyang.com) from Malaysian IPs, making it impossible for us to know how great he is. From what I’ve heard, his is a case of sour grapes, although no-one’s hands were clean in the affair.

Kris: Doesn’t explain why he shuts it off to Malaysians though. I mean, you know I constantly tweak my blog to see if I can make it better. Does it really help to prevent people who need the most help the help they need? Doesn’t make sense.

well yea. some ppl don’t forgive very easily, so tht’ll probably be y he does dat. to get back at innocent ppl who use pps but dunno the story behind it. heck i didn’t know till u just blogged about it

I have to say I disagree with us all owning PPS. I’d rather put it as we all are a part of PPS. Those who own PPS are the ones who have spent time, effort and money into putting the project together and maintaining it. That is what separates the owners and the participants. PSS is a service provided for us.

And if what is said about Tim Yang is true, I’m sorry to hear that but the fact is, PPS was not set up by him. A lot of people came up with the idea of the airplane but the Wright Brothers were the ones to make it fly. Same case here. There is nothing to be sour about in the first place.

Will: Maybe you’re right. Owning is too strong a word. But I also used the word belonging to us as well. I mean, the way I’m looking at it is part of the fact we also make PPS the way it is right now. It is as much a part of our blogging lives as it is the creators. Wouldn’t be much if PPS was pinged by a handful of people. Also…yeah…it would be sad to see him left out of the loop should all the stories that are floating around true. But you’re right and as I also wrote…ideas need to be brought up and made reality. Otherwise it’s just another idea.

There was one thread which I carried on for almost three years. It was one of the crowd-drawers.
Then, suddenly I noticed eight advertisements at the top and bottom.
When I asked, the owner answered that it was the Google which is sponsoring and they put them up.
I pointed out that the adverts were case-selective, i.e., they belong to the same genre as the thread.
The joint owner answered, “Over the years —— has grown. We need adverts to maintain”.

Yarp! Give credit where credit is due. Even if you’ve made up your mind you don’t like him based on he-said-she-said. Ab-so-lute-ly.
IMO, PPS may not technically belong to us, but PPS would not be PPS without us. Metaphorically, it would be, in sprirt a Lorong Alor (heh!) or Jalan Mengamuk or Simpang Bosan.

Percolator: Haha. At least it’s not Chowkit Road. Then that would be really bad. But really…it’s a manner of speaking anyway. Like…the world belongs to us or how movies and music belongs to the people. That’s the way I’m looking at it. We give it life. We are it’s life.

Let’s get this straight, ok. I said it was a bad idea. I never said it was my idea. It was bad and still is because it is elitist and excludes. I said I wanted it to be more of a wiki — aggregation of content where anyone could post to. It might have been a more workable idea three years ago because the universe of Malaysian blogs was relatively small then. But just as I predicted, the universe got too big to handle. Incidentally, if it was such a good idea how come no one else in the world wants to replicate it.

And yes, my blog bans all Malaysians and most proxies (including anonymouse and proxify). And no, I disagree that Malaysians need my blog. If they did want to read it, then they would need to know how to use RSS feeds which hardly any Malaysian does which makes the point of needing to read my content moot since it deals with RSS and other technologies like that. Readership niching is the key to blogging longevity and readership nurturing. And that strategy is why mine is the oldest surviving blog in Malaysia and all other blogs die.

Tim Yang, I can access your blog, and it’s nothing to boast about. For one, your layout is an eyesore to behold. There is no esthetic quality to the design of your blog, and you don’t have many comments on your posts either. Your ads are skewed all the way to the bottom of the page, and everything is way too cluttered for readers to properly appreciate your blog.

Plus, your lifespan of your blog says nothing about the blogger or the contents of the blog itself. Besides, who says Malaysian blogs die? Mine is well alive and kicking, and so are the blogs of each and every PPSer out there.

Technological know how isn’t the be all and end all, you know? Being tech savvy doesn’t mean that you have a fantastic social life, or that you are an all rounder. It doesn’t mean that you have that certain spark that keeps your readers alive. Show me that you have a well balanced life, and maybe I’ll pay you the respect you think you deserve. If not, stop going around other people’s blogs insulting your own country. If you really don’t like it here and think that foreigners are the only ones who are capable of appreciating your cranial capacities, please, by all means, leave.

Aiz and all the PPS founders have done an amazing job here, and PPS has become so much more. It’s a vibrant community full of real people and diverse postings. On the other hand, what have you done to make this world a better place?

You’re right about readership niching, and PPS delivers to most walks of life. Food, cars, technology, heartbreak, sprituality, writing, blogging….you name it, someone’s pinged it.

I’m sure you have your reasons for blocking Malaysian IPs, but if that reason is just because you think that we aren’t intellectually able to digest your contents,, then your own credibility in your arguments is pretty much deemed void, for why argue with us if you doubt us?

Though I dont ever went to PPS nor are quite accustomed with the Malaysian Blogging gossips but I am quite familiar with the internet culture. What is so interesting about tihs post of yours is that it surfaced some very interesting internet culture, a somewhat rant of a no life geek who spends too much time on the net. But then again thats not a very bad thing either. Though this is not a rarity in the net, take Megatokyo.com for instance, the infamous anime internet culture. Even that too suffers from incident like this when their Co-Founder Largo decided to leave after disagreeing with Fred Ghalagger. PPS does belong to everyone but then again the credit has to go to those who deserve it.

These things are quite normal in the net but we have to remember one thing. The things that we fight for, in the net such as websites or control of a forum or community, in the end those things are just 1’s and 0’s in the digital world. In the end its just a bunch of information. And information if not shared is something of no value. Let bygones be bygones, I dont know who is right or who is wrong and I dont even care. But cant let go and ban a whole nation for just a lousy internet community sounds rahter sad. Very-very sad, and I dont mean it in a sympathetic manner, more of a pathetic manner.

tim: boasting that your blog is the oldest surviving in Malaysia and all other blogs die is really making you sound like a jealous insecure prat. You make it seem that every other Malaysian blog out there is not worth reading and you are the almighty ‘king’ of Malaysian blogs.

Your sentiment is nice and all, but it’s wrong. The fact of the issue is that, yes, Aizuddin owns Petaling Street. All he allows us to do is advertise on his property, gratis.

I’m not basing the argument on what the others have said, but simply on a simple, somewhat irrefutable argument, based on a thought-experiment that was used in the creation of the Python Software Foundation:

“What if Aizuddin got run over by a bus?”

The necessary actions needed to keep PPS living beyond a year after that proposed hypothetical accident (which we hope does not happen, of course) illustrates how dependent we are on Aizuddin’s continued benevolence and ability.